Leap of faith: Skeptics aside, in Lowcountry South Carolina Mormonism is on the rise

Posted by Kendall Harmon

“Pastors continue to preach that we’re a cult. This stuff just grows in people’s minds,” said [Nathan] Hale, a Mount Pleasant father and business owner whose ancestry reaches back to the church’s pioneers. “It hasn’t changed.”

Even as the Charleston Stake, or group of churches, celebrates its 40th anniversary amid tremendous growth and on the eve of an election with a Mormon presidential candidate, Mormons remain an oddity to some and a sacrilegious sect to others — even among their Christian brethren.